Fifth Issue of Our Literary Journal Foment

With recent debates over the Prime Minister’s
powers to prorogue parliament, Senators’ accountability,
and the “Fair” Elections Act galvanizing
public conscience, one could forgive Canadians for holding a jaded view
of Parliament and the people ‘we’ elect — or ‘they’ appoint
— to operate within its musty chambers. But I think many of us would
be surprised to learn that departing Members of Parliament (MPs) — regardless
of gender, party, or status within their party — would espouse
similar skepticism, and at times even apathy, when reflecting on their years on
the Hill. Yet that is just what Alison
Loat and Michael MacMillan, founders of Samara have uncovered by interviewing 80 former MPs; 35 of whom had held cabinet
positions.

Loat and MacMillan joined an enthusiastic, full
house at the Ottawa International Writers Festival to discuss, along with Kate
Heartfield of the Ottawa Citizen, the process of writing Tragedy in
the Commons,
a book which weaves together the findings from these interviews.

Although the MPs were mostly frank and
forthcoming, the interviews are equally fascinating when one considers what
topics were not raised. Relationships with the public service, and with the media?
Although always of interest to the Ottawa audience, most of the MPs did not
discuss these issues. Nor did any particularly imaginative
recommendations for improving the health of our political system emerge from the interviews.

But let’s get to what the MPs did say. And
do keep in mind that all except Jay Hill, a Reform Party MP who served as Prime
Minister Stephen Harper’s House Leader from 2008-2010, spoke to
Loat and MacMillan on the record. Here are some golden nuggets straight from
the MPs-turned-pensioners:

A majority of interviewees acknowledged that most Canadians have an
unfavourable view of politicians, and quickly sought to distance themselves
from the ‘typical MP.’ For instance, many claimed to have ‘stumbled
into politics’ or even been ‘dragged’ into the
political arena from careers as social workers, educators, lawyers, and
community activists. Many said that nothing in their pre-political careers prepared them
to succeed in Ottawa. Furthermore, once they arrived on Parliament Hill — following
a gruelling nomination process and campaign — a large
number noted they felt unsupported, and even that some of their caucus
colleagues were hesitant to point them in the right direction, not wanting to
position the rookie to outshine him or her within the party.

In spite of the fact that Canadian MPs vote in line with their party
positions the vast majority of the time, most of the interviewees were quick to
elaborate on the instances in which they fundamentally disagreed with their
parties. That ‘whipping votes’ is effectively silencing elected officials
is well established as the current status quo. A number of MPs criticized their parties’ “opaque” and
“black box”
processes, and many had some unpleasant things to say
about their experience obtaining the nomination in their riding to run as a
candidate — and these were the voices of the winners of those intra-party
contests!

When asked if they had any advice to offer future parliamentarians,
many MPs suggested that they try to become experts in ‘something,’ so
that when their issue comes up on the agenda, they will be their party’s ‘go-to.’ Liberal
MP Kirsty Duncan’s expertise in environmental science comes to mind. Yet Loat and
MacMillan are right to question how this modus operandi might challenge
traditional views of the role of the MP as a faithful representative of, or
trustee for, constituents and their policy preferences.

I’m a theatre person myself, so I was interested that the authors
described MPs as ‘playing a role’ in a piece of parliamentary theatre,
rather than being the scriptwriter and director of their own career. At the
extreme end of this tension was an MP who said, “I didn’t
leave my wife and children and move across the country to Ottawa to be told
what to do,” presumably by ‘teenage PMO staffers in short pants,’ as
the saying goes.

Many MPs claim the ‘real work’ takes place
not in the House of Commons, but in parliamentary committees. Yet they point
out that the thoughtfulness of committee work vanishes as soon as the agenda
becomes tinted in partisanship and the media rushes in. As Loat and MacMillan
wonder, why is it that MPs are on their worst behaviour in front of the
cameras, and their most constructive behaviour when left to their own
deliberations?

Though they themselves had few ideas for improving parliamentary
processes and practises (except for electronic voting to speed things up in the
House of Commons), a number of MPs from all parties expressed support for ‘dissident’ MP
and former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Chong’s private
members bill, which would give caucuses the ability to demand leadership
reviews, and would erode the discretion of party leaders in local nomination
contests.

Tragedy in the Commons is a riff of Garrett Hardin’s economic theory “tragedy of the
commons,” which examines the short-run incentive to exploit common resources,
such as common grazing fields, in spite of the long-run, collective advantages
of prudence and moderation. Indeed many of the MPs expressed frustration over
the extent to which the Canadian political machine forced them to sacrifice the
long-run social good for short-term partisan gains. It would certainly be
interesting to compare perspectives by interviewing retired MPs in various
other Westminster parliaments, especially New Zealand and Australia.

For Loat and MacMillan — whose day
jobs see them dreaming up ways to increase public participation in political
affairs during the years between elections — the key
question raised in Tragedy in the Commons is as follows: how can we
expect Canadians, particularly young people, to be energized about participating
in politics if their own departing MPs offer such a sour and stagnant view of
the very system they devoted their lives to navigating?

A Saturday evening of
poetry in the capital, what more could you ask for? Forget your nightclubs and
bars; poetry cabaret is where the weekend fun is to be had. The Saturday
evening in question brought together three exciting, contemporary poets: Rob
Winger, Adam Sol and Sina Queyras, to share readings of their most recent work
with an attentive audience.

First up to the podium
was Rob Winger, an Ontario native whose most recent book Old Hat aims to subvert the clichés of poetry - or, depending on
the cliché, reveal them to be inevitable to any poet. My personal highlight
from his readings was “In this poem”, a poem about another, imaginary poem and
the many complicated, pseudo-intellectual meanings and allusions hidden within
it that the reader would be required to understand in order to fully appreciate
the poem; meta-poetry at its finest.

While Winger was a hard
act to follow, Adam Sol took to the task admirably, not least through his
banter between poems which was almost as entertaining as the poetry itself. His
newest collectionComplicity seeks to
understand how we can reconcile ourselves with our identities while
comprehending the violent undercurrents in society; a deep and dark concept
which yet gives rise to entertaining, if thought-provoking, poetry.

Finally we were treated
to readings by Sina Queyras, whose latest book MxT is about loss and grief. Her work often combines poetry with non-lyrical
writing; whether that be in the form of an instruction manual or with mathematical symbols, giving
her poems a specific structure without losing the heart of the poetry. Her
performance was more sombre in style than the preceding poets, unsurprising
given the nature of her poetry, and the contrast in styles was interesting to
see, especially during an evening in which the concept of “Canadian Poetry” as
a movement was discussed.

Our host for the
evening, Stephen Brockwell, estimated the audience to be made up of roughly 90%
poets; a demographic inclined to enjoy an evening of poetry reading. However, as
someone to whom the poetic muse hasn’t spoken since I was in the midst of those
angst-ridden teenage years, I still very much enjoyed the event.

It is always fantastic
to hear a poet perform their own work; to hear the inflections, emphasis and
speed that the poet envisioned for their words, which are so often confined to
the paper, and this particular evening was no exception. From Winger’s
brilliant comedic delivery, to Sol’s rambling – but very entertaining –
introductions to his poems and Queyras’ more sombre reading of her beautiful,
grief-drenched poetry, hearing the poems the way they were intended to be read
was a rare treat.

The discussion that
followed the readings touched on the significance of events and discourse for
modern poetry, an importance that was underlined by the evening itself. While
poetry cannot be written with the sole aim of pulling in an audience, it is
wonderful to have an occasion to experience live poetry readings. Adam Sol
referred to poetry as a “quasi-religious experience,” and on a night such as
yesterday, in a fabulous venue such as Knox Presbyterian Church, it is an easy
statement with which to agree.

What is it about a small, spry, spunky
nonagenarian that captures our attention and leads us to examine our habits and
lifestyle choices? For starters, there
aren’t many of us that will make it over 90 so encountering a healthy, happy
one inevitably invokes a bit of curiosity.
But even the healthy, happy ones we would presume to be confined to a
senior’s home, most likely losing lucidity and agility at a rapid rate. The last place we’d expect to find a ninety
year-old would be the medal ceremony of a 100-metre dash at a Masters Track
competition. But ninety-five year-old
Olga Kotelko isn’t interested in meeting our or any expectations. She defies the rules of aging, and her story as
told by writer and author Bruce Grierson, naturally compels us to question what
it is that makes her live so long (and so well) and how we might get in on that
good fortune. It amazes and baffles us
that as the rest of humanity slowly succumbs to the irrepressible powers of gravity
and time, Olga marches on indomitably and zestfully through her tenth decade of life.

Her story alone is compelling enough to
make us drop our frozen dinners and take note.
But Grierson’s lighthearted delivery and endearing self-deprecation invite
us to explore the mystery of Olga in a way that is approachable, engaging, and
fun. While there are few on this earth who
can personally relate to an outlier like Olga, we can all relate to someone who
wants to be more like her. Grierson begins
his exploration with questions any of us might have: “What makes Olga
different?”, “Can I be like Olga?” His
five-year journey of observing, learning, and writing about what we could
easily try to classify as a “freak of nature” reveals the confounding
complexities of the science, the theories, and the mystery behind aging.

Like any good exploration of life’s
perplexing realities, Grierson’s talk at the Writers’ Festival left the
audience with deeper and more nuanced questions than easy and straightforward
answers. Olga’s “secret to success” (the
number one thing people hope to learn in reading Grierson’s book or speaking to
him in person) is both mundanely simple and bewilderingly complex, all at
once.

As Grierson says, it’s a
complicated combination of “genes, lifestyle, temperament, and luck.”

Ask Olga what her secret is, or better yet,
watch her in action and you won’t find her following a fad diet or applying
some special skin cream. It’s as basic
as this: she lives in balanced moderation, determined positivity, and constant
movement. In a society where being
deskbound for hours on end is the norm and grabbing pre-made meals is the rule
rather than the exception, this timeless recipe for healthy living is now once again, as rediscoveries often are, novel. In the amnesia of modern life, the lifestyle our
bodies and minds were made for has somehow become a “secret elixir” to living
long and well.

Obviously, it goes farther and deeper than
that. Grierson is quick to point out how
many different variables are involved, some of which are controllable (diet, attitude,
physical movement that goes beyond 30 minutes of vigorous “exercise”); others that
are harder if not impossible to control (genes, environment, upbringing.) The
way nature melds this all together in a person, and peppers it with (or
without) a good dose of luck, will likely remain a mystery to us mortals. Our desperate need to quantify the
unquantifiable makes this conclusion maddeningly unsatisfactory. But it also makes Olga’s story and Grierson’s
interpretation of it one of the most gripping life narratives of our day. She may not have found the Elixir of Life but
she’s discovered many ways to help her live well and after hearing from
Grierson, I’m willing to give it a try.
Though I don’t know if I’d bet my life on it.

Sometimes, I am a bit dim-witted. I am especially
dim-witted on Fridays. In my state of aforementioned dim-wittedness, I failed
to process that Rae and Ivan’s event at Writers Fest would be so much more than
a reading and Q&A session. Gender
Failure, a collaborative multi-media show that Rae and Ivan have toured
across North America, was both heart-breaking and hilarious. It is no wonder
that this event was not only sold out but also had a waitlist for tickets.

Throughout the course of the evening, Rae
and Ivan alternated between sharing their personal narratives and experiences of
gender, and performing songs. I was blown away by Rae Spoon’s phenomenal
vocals, and by Rae and Ivan’s excellent grasp of how to tell a story.

Theirs is
an excellent collaboration.

Not many musical experiences literally make
me shiver. Perhaps that Basia Bulat show a few years ago at First Baptist
Church, where she played a strange instrument in total darkness. Or maybe even
the nostalgia-for-adolescence-in-the-90s flashback known as the Backstreet Boys 20th year tour.
You can most certainly add Rae Spoon and Ivan Coyote’s performance to that very
short (and diverse) list.

Gender
Failure was both accessible and intimate. One
minute, Rae and Ivan had the audience singing along to gender confused YouTube
comments; the next, we were aching with the recognition that none of us feel
fully attached to (and thus comfortable with) our physical bodies.

I’m certain that many of Rae and Ivan’s
experiences were all too relatable. Perhaps some of us were heartlessly
abandoned by our BFF Janine, whose breasts and interest in cheerleading appeared
overnight. Or perhaps we experienced a middle school gymnastic dancing
nightmare, during which we heard a mysterious voice that prompted us to flee
from the gymnasium.

These are, of course, two of many heartfelt and humourous
anecdotes shared during the evening, all of which allowed us a fascinating
glimpse into Rae and Ivan’s lives.

It is clear to me that the collaborative
work—both music and prose—between Rae and Ivan is not just entertaining but
also extremely important: Gender Failure
ultimately speaks to the desire to be known, and points out that a name is not
the same thing as a person. And, as Ivan pointed out, he is a writer; he knows
where words fail us.

I’d be hard pressed to single out one
reading from all of Gender Failure
that was most revelatory or influential, as the entire performance was such a
cohesive yet diverse experience. Were last night’s event not the last on Rae
and Ivan’s tour, I would be urging you to buy tickets to their next show
immediately. Instead, I’m urging you to pick up a copy of their book, and to
hope that the show tours again the future.

What is language? We use it every day, but rarely stop to
consider it. Language is a critical part
of life in a society, providing the ability to communicate by allowing
individuals to share information, ideas and experiences across physical space
and time through sounds or written forms that represent sounds. Each sound can be combined with others into
recognizable patterns which we identify with words. We then combine those words into phrases to
communicate more and more complex things.
But all of this is based around a shared set of understood meanings that
those who make dictionaries earn their livelihoods from (or used to anyway). What happens when this process of defining
meaning gets undermined through the disruption of the source information or
worse, through the disruption of the understanding of the individual? These are the questions that each author of
Friday night’s book panel wrestled with.
Yet, while each book took a similar starting point, they are all unique
interpretations of the answers.

Peter Norman was the first author up. He shared three readings from his novel Emberton.Emberton
is a gothic style novel, based in an old office building housing a dictionary
publisher. The readings illustrated the
style, and Norman used the excessive descriptive passages well to either comic effect
or building tension. Norman shared later
that part of the inspiration behind the structure of the office building had
been from seeing the movie Titanic, where the ship was envisioned as a
microcosm of society, with the captain and the upper-class people on the top of
the ship, while the working class people were deep within the structure operating the
motors. In Emberton, the crumbling office tower is that microcosm, with the editors
in the glass penthouse and the printers buried down in the basement. Norman used the gothic elements of medieval
buildings and magical elements with a threatening sense of mystery in a modern
way.

Alena Graedon shared next, from her novel The Word Exchange. After hearing Emberton’s style, it was apparent that The Word Exchange was more relaxed in tone, and listening to Graedon
read felt like listening to a friend share a story. Graedon read the opening section, where we
meet the protagonist who is experiencing her world crumble. First, she is questioning her identity
(having been working on a portfolio to apply to an MFA program for several
years, but never being quite “ready”), and then losing her boyfriend
(figuratively) of many years, and then her father disappears (literally). Graydon’s use of language in her writing was
equally strong as Norman’s, and the “near-future” science fiction style works
perfectly for this story. Her
description of the world around the characters seems fully plausible yet has an
element of a dystopian future to keep the audience on edge.

The third author of the evening was Ghalib
Islam, who shared from his book Fire in
the Unnameable Country. While the
other two authors had strong reading voices, Islam unfortunately seemed
uncomfortable reading out loud from his book. Initially I had thought
this might be for effect, increasing the discomfort that you could sense from
the text, but it eventually became clear this wasn’t the case. Much of the audience was visibly straining to
hear him speak. Despite the difficulty
in listening to the reading, there was no doubt in the strength of the writing,
with Fire in the Unnameable Country
being a dense satirical fantasy based in the world of the War on Terror, and
confusion over collective and personal history from the severing of language from
identity.

The host for the evening was Stephen Brockwell,
a Canadian poet living in Ottawa.
Brockwell had read all three books before the event and was well
prepared, asking good questions of each of the authors. The questions raised varied from asking about
the origin of the ideas for each of the novels, to exploring the unique forms
each author used, to the transition of text from print to digital forms and how
is this changing society. Each novel had
an interesting origin story, and two of the three were marred with personal
hardship and tragedy.

Emberton actually was based around
an idea the Norman had as a young child.
He was reading the dictionary and came across the page with the many
names of people who contribute to the dictionary. His eight year-old mind envisioned all these
people working in the same building, sitting side-by-side. During the process of writing the novel, his
research found that the organizations that made dictionaries were not as
fanciful as he originally imagined, encouraging the novel into further
fantasy.

The idea that sparked The Word Exchange came from reading a
dictionary she had received as a graduation gift upon completion of her MFA in
creative writing. Shortly before
finishing her MFA, she had a house fire, and all her books and everything had
been burned. Her parents bought her the
dictionary as a gift to replace the one she had lost in the fire. As she was reading the new dictionary she
came across entries for people such as Sylvia Plath, and wondered what it would
be like if one of these entries just disappeared. This idea was the starting point of her novel
(where the father of the protagonist disappears from the dictionary, and from
the world).

Islam’s origin story is much
more difficult. He explained that he had
worked for a year on a precursor to what has become Fire in the Unnameable Country, and then was hit by a drunk driver
and was nearly killed. In his time in
the hospital and during rehab he started revising, editing and reworking, and
that process has taken its time to eventually become what is now
published. As Islam shared this story,
he was calm, sharing details such as seeing the photos of the accident scene
where there was more blood than he could imagine coming out of his body and
feeling a strong sense of fragmentation from the question of “where am I in
this image”. But, Islam got visibly
upset when he shared that the person who had hit him (and subsequently ran from
the accident) was only charged with Drunk Driving, and not with anything more
severe despite the fact that she had nearly killed him. This sense of disrupted justice has also been
something that was clearly an influence on elements of his book which he
alluded to, but didn’t have time to expand upon.

What I love about the Ottawa International Writers Festival
is the opportunity to be exposed to new books, ideas and authors. This event introduced me to three new
authors, and their first books. Each of
these authors are clearly talented, and I’m excited about picking each of these
books up to read. I love looking at
philosophical questions, and the philosophy of language and its influence on
individuals and society has so much room for exploration. Each author here has started with similar
questions but has used their artistry and personality to create three unique
books.

There are no answers to questions
like these, but sometimes in the experience of thinking more deeply about the
importance of something like language, we can learn how to be more mindful in
our use and valuation of it as the use of language drastically keeps transforming through new technology.

Most people with severe food allergies haven’t
stopped to reflect on how their ancestors’ diets and behaviours got them to the
point where they can enjoy a milkshake without severe physical repercussions.

But Dr. Sharon Moalem has.

The award-winning physician and New York
Times best-selling author has spent years examining how our genes are in a state
of constant change, and that while you may be preprogrammed for either failure
or success with respect to specific circumstances, your biological wiring doesn’t necessarily determine your fate.

At a kickoff event for the spring edition
of the Ottawa International Writers Festival, we had a full house to hear Dr. Moalem’s talk. While some might find it surprising that
literary enthusiasts would rush to get a good seat for a speaker focusing
heavily on science, that just means they aren’t familiar with Moalem’s approachable demeanour. Similar to his writing style, Moalem speaks
without jargon, cracks plenty of jokes, and uses anecdotal evidence to support
his studies and theories.

In short, Moalem is a university student’s
dream professor.

Informative and entertaining, Moalem
explained that the human genome is not as rigidly pre-set as the scientific community
once thought. Mutants do not simply develop from cosmic radiation; and yet it
may surprise you to learn that many of us are indeed mutants.

Make you nervous? It’s not so scary. A
specific, evolutionary mutation is actually the reason why many humans can
break down and digest milk into adulthood. Does that sound like you? Welcome to
the club. (And no, the club is not the X-Men. If only.)

Human genes are able to support what Moalem
refers to as, “annotations in the margins.” That means there is enough room for
your genes to make notes about important events in your life that strongly
impacted you, and to prepare you should they ever occur again.

After reading an excerpt of his book to the
attendees, Moalem and event host Sean Wilson conducted a Q&A session with the
audience. Among the diverse subtleties of genetics explored during the
discussion, Moalem explained to the audience how traumatic events like
experiencing severe bullying as a child, or a soldier developing post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD) from combat are currently being studied to see whether the
resulting certain genetic markers, or “annotations,” can be passed down from
one generation to the next.

Studies with mice have shown that traumatic
events can change the way mice behave. Moalem explained a study in which baby
mice that were taken away from their mother on a regular basis experienced a
form of PTSD and were more timid and less exploratory than mice that matured in
a more stable environment.

A basic knowledge of psychology and many
societal issues would indicate that such behaviour holds true for humans as
well.

What remains to be revealed, is whether
humans pass down certain behaviours to their children like the mice do:
subsequent generations of the affected offspring exhibited similar timid
behaviours as well. However scientists were able to avoid causing apprehension
in the next generation of mice by administering a neutralizing drug in time.

Scientists want to know whether this could
be done for traumatized humans as well, though since the amount of time between
our generations is significantly longer, we’re left on a scientific cliffhanger
until the next chapter is researched and written. We may have to wait longer to find out what
happens next than fans waiting on George R. R. Martin’s next book.

With his engaging writing and personality,
Moalem has created a key opportunity for those literary enthusiasts with an
interest in history, physiology, and human genetics to indulge their curiosity
in an accessible and entertaining way. While you may not think you look good in
your genes, chances are you may not even be aware of what kind you had to begin
with, or what condition they’re in today.

Genes
tell the story of your life, and you are the main character. Hopefully you find
it to be a great read.

If you've ever had poetry read to you in a church, then you'll understand
what Matthew Zapruder meant when he said, "All poetry should be read
here until the end of time. It should be illegal to do it anywhere
else."

All four writers had incredible stories to share
and it felt less like a staged event and more like a reunion among friends, which is
all part of the magic at the Ottawa Writers Festival. There were
discussions, debates and thoughtful commentaries which arose from the
conversations during the night. It is always a pleasure to hear kind words
of encouragement from authors and this evening was no exception. The poets
urged writers to create problems to solve, to question "what can
poetry do?", and to allow an editor to completely annihilate
your work.

Some highlights of the night were Garth Martens'
poem, "The Bug Unit," Sara Lang's poetic advice in "For
Tamara," Anne-Marie Turza's "The Veil," and the
first poem in Matthew Zapruder's book, "Sunbear."

Given that it is Poetry Month, the bash
allowed for the authors to present an abundance of styles under the poetic
umbrella. There was lightness, darkness, humour, a mosquito gracing ears
and a letter written to God.

A lamp gave out when the authors were on
stage but that didn't stop the artists from saying two things:

One; that a poetry book is an interior world in
which we should wander around in.

and Two; a true poet will forget about making
you look for double meanings.

I'll take poetic advice like like that any
day.

The next poetry event is the Poetry Cabaret at
8:30 PM on Saturday, April 26

Meeting and listening to Jonas Bengtsson made for a very enjoyable and
interesting pre-launch event to the Spring edition of the Ottawa International
Writers Festival. This event
was presented in association with the Royal Danish Embassy, The Canadian Nordic
Society and The Danish Club of Ottawa, with the Danish Ambassador and his wife
and members of the two locally based organizations in attendance. Some of them
knew Bengtsson well and had, evidently came to the event having already read his book. We filled the
large dining room in the Army Officers' Mess to full capacity. Most of us, at least
as far as those not reading Danish in the audience were concerned, had not
heard of Jonas Bengtsson and his newly translated novel, A Fairy Tale. Our guest, however, is well-known in his home
country, has written two other novels and has been the winner of several
Scandinavian literary prizes. I am convinced that, with A Fairy Tale, now availablein
Canada in English, as translated by Charlotte Barslund, through Anansi Press, his
popularity will increase considerably.

Neil Wilson, Founding Director of the Writers Festival, took over as
the host to step in for Laurence Wall, who was not able to attend. He jumped
right into the discussion of one of the central themes of the novel: the
complex relationship between father and his young son made more challenging by
them "living at the margins of society." Written in the voice of a young boy, it could not have been an easy voice to maintain. How does an author
succeed so brilliantly to get s into the mind of a six year old and grow with
him and his voice into young adulthood? It was a privilege to listen to the
stimulating exchange that followed these questions.

Jonas Bengtsson answered openly and candidly to Neil's and audience's questions. He admitted that he found writing this novel more difficult than
anything he had written before. In fact, when he had started, he'd planned to write a
very different novel altogether. He had never attempted anything similar before
and didn't really want to write the kind of novel it turned out to become. So,
what changed in the process of writing? Life, in short.

His own son, who was
slightly younger than his character at the time of writing, had moved in with
him more than they previous part-time arrangement they'd had, and they were spending considerable quality time
together. He had to make adjustments to his routines (he writes at night
usually) but that was a small price to pay for what he gained. For example, the
recognition of the total trust a child has in his parent, the beauty of it, but
also the realization of the profound responsibility that comes with this recognition. All of this made him reflect more deeply on his role: how would one educate their child, pass on to them knowledge, experience and social norms? How does one instill
stability and routines that the child expects while also encouraging creativity
and a certain amount of risk taking? How to balance the fundamental need to
keep his son safe while leaving him room to grow into his own increasingly
independent person? Not surprisingly, many of these reflections have found
their way into his novel.

Having read the book prior to the event, I found Bengtsson's very
personal connections to his novel moving. It goes without saying that he
created a father figure in the novel who does not represent him. The fictitious
father has other issues to deal with also and does not, or cannot, take quite
such a balanced and considerate perspective on raising his son. Still, while
his deep love for his son speaks from every page, here again, life has ways of
interfering that make his efforts more complicated and challenging. Bengtsson
also brings in an element of magic to his story – the Fairy Tale – and at least
one central character, who, in addition to the father, can create a magical
world for the son.

Much more could be said about the evening and the great discussions with
Jonas Bengtsson but it must suffice to encourage everyone to pick-up, read and enjoy his novel.
Neil Wilson reflected the view of many in his closing remarks when he expressed
his hope that the successful collaboration with the Danish Embassy and the
other partners can bring more Danish writers and talent to the Writers Festival
in the future.

It has now
been over a decade since the final full sequence of over 20,500
genes was mapped by the multi-national Human Genome Project. It is
still surreal to fathom the enormity, and the seeming anti-climactic
finality of this achievement. For the numerous scientists who
collaborated on this project, their final aspiration was not simply
the conquest of a biological puzzle per
se but was rather in
translating this newly compiled information into health for
individuals and across populations.

The full
realization of a personalized, “genomic medicine” is still very
much an ongoing venture. Dr. Sharon Moalem's third book, titled
Inheritance, seeks
to imprint the relevance of genetic research on rare conditions to
everyday life. As a practising physician and clinical researcher, Dr.
Moalem's writing style is bereft of jargon, filled with anecdotes,
and presumes little to no prior knowledge on the subject.

Citing
the reality of over 6000 rare genetic disorders, Dr. Moalem sets up
the advice of the British physician James Paget as his guide.
Paget, writing in the British medical journal The
Lancet, in
1882, wrote that “[n]ot one of them [rare diseases] is without
meaning...[n]ot one that might not become the beginning of excellent
knowledge, if we could answer the questions – why is it rare? Or
being rare, why did it in this instance happen?”

The
reason rare genetic disorders occur so infrequently is that complex,
multicellular animals operate under the principle of “biological
totalitarianism.” This is the mechanism that, when functioning as
it should, “promotes cellular obedience at all costs, an obedience
enforced by receptors on the surface of any potentially misbehaving
cells.” Yet the paradox is that our DNA – our
hereditary material and biological instruction manual – is susceptible to change through individual actions, and stimuli
from the environment. The remarkable fact is that even a a very small
change in genetic code has a significant transformation in its
expression. Dr. Moalem recounts the story of a young boy in Lahore,
Pakistan who had a small mutation in the SCN9A gene leading to his accidental death as he jumped off a roof on a dare, as he was completely devoid of feeling any pain.

There
are various points in the book where the reader is encouraged to have
their exome (partial) or whole genome sequenced as it has become relatively cheaper to do so. While this is true – in 2000, $10
million could barely sequence 1 person while the same amount,
accounting for inflation, can sequence up to 400 people – there is
still stubborn bottlenecks due to the complexities involved in
computing and interpreting this genetic data. The practicality of
access continues to be restricted due to these barriers, and are far
more in abeyance in developing countries for the same reasons,
amplified.

Dysmorphology
is using careful observation of the physical appearance of the
patient to deduce the probability of different genetic disorders.
While this harkens discomfiting thoughts of a phrenologists' fingers
tracing the contours of one's skull, Dr. Moalem outlines how noting
certain features of the patient's face can yield useful medical clues
aplenty. In fact, just last month, Dr. Moalem and his team won a
hackathon event at MIT for developing a smartphone app that can help
identify “predispositions to certain diseases based on facial
structure.”

The
possession of such intimate knowledge raises a slew of other issues.
At a time when truly private spheres continue to diminish in a world
of prevalent social media and connectivity, privacy concerns are
inescapable. Dr. Moalem raises the thorny issue of “genetic
discrimination” where someone could be turned down disability or
life insurance based on their profile. Perhaps even the prospect of a
romantic relationship becomes contingent on genetic capability; the
possibilities for exclusion abound. The practise of gender-selective
abortion is prevalent in China, and this is inadvertently abetted by the ultrasound
technology that enables parents to identify the sex of the foetus.
The case of Ethan, who does not even have the a trace of a Y
chromosome, who was still born male is a caveat against eugenics of
this kind. The personal ebullience of Dr. Moalem shines through in
the passages where he praises the courage and patience of his
patients with rare conditions, sincerely expressing how much they
have to teach us, not just in biology, but in being human.

Availability
of genetic data need not always be so irredeemably filled with pitfalls.
Parents Amy Garland and Paul Crummey were placed under surveillance
in the UK under suspicion of abuse when their infant son had numerous
broken bones. It was only much later that the source was diagnosed as a symptom of osteogenesis
imperfecta
or OI, a genetic disorder which impairs the quality of collagen that
constitutes healthy bones. The acknowledgement of the physiological
fixity of transgender traits – whether they be kathoeys
in Thailand or hijras
in the Indian Subcontinent – have helped usher in increased social
tolerance in very conservative societies.

Personalized
genomic medicine seems like a panacea to rigid rules, and holds the
promise of maximal individual care. In this way, genetic
abnormalities can nullify many behaviours that are deemed harmless
and even recommended. Having Hereditary
Fructose Intolerance
means that most fruits and vegetables could be toxic. A mutation of
the CYP1A2 gene could make caffeine consumption dangerously raise
blood pressure. Genetic variation on the MTHFR gene could mean that
mothers would need much more than the recommended dose of folic acid
to prevent neural tube defects in their babies, while also contending
with the elevated levels of folic acid masking a deficiency in
Vitamin B12. An interesting conundrum to explore would be whether an
overly individualized approach to medicine could erode any
authoritative clinical directive? Evidence exists that cigarettes'
causation of lung cancer varies along the probability scale based on
personal genetic make-up. Would tobacco or junk food companies now be
exempt from blame if they can shift it to someone's genes rather than
their unhealthy product?

While
much of the prose is straightforward and plain, Dr. Moalem
occasionally slips into sublimity:

Like shadows behind a rice-paper screen,
we do occasionally catch glimpses of our inner workings. We feel our
pulse race when we're excited. We notice a but scab over, then slowly
disappear altogether. Through it all we are oblivious to the hundreds
if not thousands of genes being continually expressed and repressed
to make it all happen seamlessly until the inevitable happens.

The
inevitable, mortality, happens to us all. Much of the advances
gained, and the many more still to come that alleviate pain as
illustrated by Dr. Moalem, are no doubt welcome. Yet in all the manic
fear and control exhibited in seeking to be a “previvor” (a
preventative survivor) there is a great unease in facing death and
suffering. Perhaps not all of us can wrestle and attain the grace
attained by Tolstoy's Ivan Illyich. But it would be a greater tragedy
to not try at all.

It was well below zero outside and
dark, and my breath, quickly turning to cloud, seeks its forebears in the
heavens above. But even though walking in this landscape makes me at times
fancy myself a walker in our mythic
North, straddling alongside “the Dorset giants who drove the Vikings back to
their long ships,” Bank Street, however cool, is still an incredible stretch of
the imagination away from Al Purdy’s North, or the tundra
of Lopez’s Arctic Dreams. Perhaps owing to
that dissimilarity, I don’t carry food in my backpack, but instead a small copy
of notes from the journals of Thoreau—that inimitable man, that
Harvard graduate who gave up human boundaries to make himself at home in the
woods. And I think I have Gary Snyder—the poet laureate of Deep Ecology—in there too,
somewhere.

Snyder

That
Beat of a poet,

that
bead-wearing monk

of
a Zazen poet

Part
mountain ranger,

part
“intro-naut”

Later, sitting in one of the front
pews in Southminster United Church, the time at least 5 minutes past 7, I
wonder why J.B. Mackinnon hasn't taken the stage yet. But, having come to a talk on nature, perhaps I had
someone the likes of John Muir or Edward Abbey in my head, and am a
bit surprised when Neil Wilson, the director of the Writers’ Festival, introduces
J.B. and a young looking fellow in a plaid shirt steps onto the stage.

Mackinnon has just recently released
his book The Once and Future World: Nature As It Was, As It Is, As It Could
Be. As the title might suggest, it is a work of historical ecology, or the
history of nature, today and into the future. The bookseller blurbs say that “The
Once and Future World began in the moment J.B. MacKinnon realized the
grassland he grew up on was not the pristine wilderness he had always believed
it to be.” I feel however that it has its genesis a bit before that; before
he realized that the wilderness he had seen in his childhood was far from
“pristine” and closer to an illusion. When James once returned to his home in
the interior grasslands of B.C., he discovered that the land had been
turned into a housing development. It was this personal encounter with a memory
hijacked by development that led him to his research, only to realize that what
he remembered was in itself artificial.

In his childhood, he had seen the Red Fox as the biggest beast on
the land, but when he started looking into the matter, he found out that the
Fox wasn’t even a native species, and was instead introduced to the grasslands
in the 1700s. In fact, it was the Grizzly Bear that was the
biggest native animal.

How
many of us have been fortunate enough to see a whale…in the wild? Mackinnon
says that 150 years ago, the whale population was thriving, and the Great Whale used to swim into Vancouver waters. But by 1908, the abundant
whale population had been hunted into obscurity. And by now, our present time,
the disappearance is normal, as if this is the way it has always been.
But, Mackinnon says, “if we are aware of their presence in the past, then their
absence would seem abnormal.”

As he expands his research, Mackinnon
finds that this capacity to readily forget is characterized by the term
“Shifting Baseline Syndrome,” a term that was initially coined by fisheries
scientist Daniel Pauly in 1995. Pauly
describes the syndrome thus: “Each generation of fisheries scientist accepts as
baseline the stock situation that occurred at the beginning of their careers,
and uses this to evaluate changes. When the next generation starts its career,
the stocks have further declined, but it is the stocks at that time that serve
as a new baseline. The result obviously is a gradual shift of the baseline, a
gradual accommodation of the creeping disappearance of resource species…"

Generation after generation our reference points slip, and we accept
compromises for reality. “We excuse, permit, adapt — and forget” writes
Mackinnon. What we need, he says, is a process of Re-wilding, reacquainting
ourselves with the natural world. While the idea is not at all new—Thoreau
firmly believed that in wildness lay the salvation of the world—Mackinnon
applies it on a large scale, perhaps knowing full well that the human species,
for the first time in its history, has become an inhabitant of cities—homo
urbanus—as the majority of the world’s population now lives and dies far
from the woods of Thoreau and Emerson.

Diana Beresford-Kroeger has come
to speak about her latest book The Sweetness of a Simple Life and one
thing she says early on in her talk holds my attention. “I’m not a very wealthy
person,” she says, “nor do I intend to be.” This reminds me of Thoreau’s words
in his Journals: “Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man hardly
need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his
tend toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say, let
your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a
million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.”

Fritz
Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful, published in
1973,is in the same vein of thought—voluntary simplicity and frugality—as
Beresford-Kroeger’s thought and challenges our progress-based economics and the myth that happiness is
purchased through higher levels of consumption. She belongs to an ancient
family in Ireland,
part of the Druidic tradition, and has long committed herself to the protection
of the world’s forests, as can be seen from her earlier work. She now tells us
a story about her search for the sacred tree of the First Nations People. The
Red Cedar tree, also known as the Tree of
Life for its diverse benefits, was almost completely wiped out of
existence—like the whales and the grizzlies of B.C.—as a result of European and
post-European contact. While it might be difficult for us to imagine the
significance and sacredness of a tree, some would say that that sense of
sacredness and meaning can be evinced through the portrayal of the “Tree of
Souls” in James Cameron’s film Avatar.

The
subtitle of Beresford-Kroeger’s book reads “Tips for Healthier, Happier, and
Kinder Living Gleaned from the Wisdom and Science of Nature,” and that might by
itself paint a portrait of the lady on stage. She speaks with the wizened air
of a grandmother, doling out advice to her eager-to-run-around child, advice
that though might seem silly and naïve, contains truth nonetheless.

In
the end, we must remember the beginning, and all that has passed since. We need
a process of “active remembering,” to keep alive the wisdom of the ages, and
not be deluded into accepting our own present-day reality as the absolute
truth. Those who have spoken about the need for a simpler existence, unfettered
by modern day contrivances which sell on account of their plastic packaged
purpose of “simplicity” and “happiness,” these speakers are chastised for
propagating a return to the stone-age. But this accusation itself is based on
what Mackinnon has spoken of as the shifting baseline and totally abnegates the
past. The now-as-it-is becomes the norm. But “when we talk about a ‘norm,’”
says Gary Snyder, “we’re talking about the grain of things in the larger
picture. Living close to earth, living more simply, living more responsibly,
are all quite literally in the grain of things… I will stress, and keep
stressing, these things, because one of the messages I feel I have to
convey—not as a preaching but as a demonstration hidden within poetry—is of
deeper harmonies and deeper simplicities, which are essentially sanities, even
though they appear irrelevant, impossible, behind us, ahead of us, or right
now."

“Right now” is an illusion, too.” Snyder’s point connects the thought and
purpose of Beresford-Kroeger and Mackinnon: we need to remember that we once
lived simpler lives, and that was better for all of us. And that no matter how
outrageous it might seem now, given especially our proclivity for social
amnesia, it is still possible to live that way.